Happy Birthday Clint

 On behalf of all the fans, and everyone here at the Archive - wishing you a very happy 93rd Birthday.

WHERE EAGLES DARE: The Elusive Style A Quad poster continues to soar in price

WHERE EAGLES DARE: The Elusive Style A Quad poster continues to soar in price

There is no doubt about it, the style A UK Quad poster for Where Eagles Dare (1968) continues to be one of the Holy Grail pieces among Eastwood collectors. It’s hard to establish exactly why this particular version remains so elusive and seemingly in short supply? Nowadays, it’s fair to say that you’re arguably more likely to find a quad poster for A Fistful of Dollars than you are for this poster. 

All things considered; no-one can actually provide any real explanation for its rarity. The film was a huge MGM blockbuster, and the campaign supporting its release far outweighed that of A Fistful of Dollars? Our resident Where Eagles Dare expert Neil Thomson is also baffled by its history, ‘It’s peculiar’, Neil said. ‘There really is no apparent reason why these don`t turn up as much. All of the photos I`ve seen of FOH displays showing the film have all had the style B. It’s possibly a simple case of the Style B being more popular.’  Neil added, ‘There’s also no real reason as to why Style A featured the inclusion of Mary Ure? But overall, I think Style B provided more of an insight of the action which was to follow.’ 

Below: The incredibly rare Style A Where Eagles Dare UK Quad Poster

I tend to agree with Neil’s observations, whilst I still like the style A, the more regularly seen style B remains for me, a more vivid design from an artistic point of view. Both of the UK Quad designs are believed to be by Frank McCarthy. It’s also interesting to note that other European designs such as France and Germany also included Mary Ure’s image in their designs. 

So, why this little piece about the style A quad poster? Well, earlier this month on May 5th, Ewbank's Auctioneers offered up one of these rare treasures during their live Cinema Poster Collection auction. The poster was somewhat conservatively estimated at £300 – £500. But of course, this was soon surpassed and the hammer fell at £1,175 (approx. $1,455) + buyers commission at 25%. 

Not bad for a piece of paper measuring 30” x 40” – I guess it’s all about what’s printed on that particular piece of vintage paper. A nice gift for someone, for the rest of us - we continue to dream and live in hope!   

My kind thanks to Neil Thomson

Below: The more regularly seen Style B UK Quad Poster

Below: The French Poster design which also featured Mary Ure

Firefox Clint Eastwood Visual Effects Oscar Winner Movie Crew Jacket

Firefox Clint Eastwood Visual Effects Oscar Winner Movie Crew Jacket

On the Archive, we occasionally like to feature a piece of crew clothing, perhaps a baseball cap or sometimes a crew jacket. They are hard to find and not many of them tend to surface, but just recently I found this one on the internet – and thought it was simply too good to ignore. 

From the 1982 Clint Eastwood action film Firefox, this is an Original and incredibly rare Movie Crew Jacket. If the jacket itself wasn't rare enough, this particular jacket was owned and obtained from JOHN DYKSTRA who has won Oscars for visual effects on Star Wars (1977). John Dykstra was one of the original founders of INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC for George Lucas. The jacket is marked on back with the Firefox movie logo and on the front is marked Apogee - Special Effects Crew on left and JOHN on the right. The jacket is extra-large in size, black satin and comes in excellent condition. John Charles Dykstra, A.S.C. (born June 3, 1947) is an American special effects artist, pioneer in the development of the use of computers in filmmaking and recipient of three Academy Awards, among many other awards and prizes. He was one of the original founders of Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects and computer graphics division of Lucasfilm. He is well known as the special effects lead on the original Star Wars, helping bring the original visuals for the space battles between X-wings and TIE fighters to the screen.

Kiefer Sutherland added to the cast of Clint's Juror #2

Kiefer Sutherland added to the cast of Clint Eastwood's Juror #2

A couple of stories have surfaced around the web over the last week stating that Kiefer Sutherland has now been added to the cast of Clint Eastwood‘s upcoming film Juror #2, slated to be the legendary director’s final motion picture. Clint has of course been a longstanding friend of Kiefer’s father Donald, starring alongside him in both Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and Space Cowboys (2000).

It was recently confirmed that Zoey Deutch had joined the project alongside Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult. With a script by Jonathan Abrams, who has only worked in the industry previously as an associate producer on the action movie Escape Plan (2013). The forthcoming project will follow a man named Justin Kemp (Hoult) who is faced with a moral dilemma whilst serving as a juror on a high-profile case.

Eastwood’s is rumoured to have also taken a role as the sponsor for Hoult’s character at Alcoholics Anonymous. Collette is lined up to play the prosecutor in the case, and Deutch will play Hoult’s wife. Abrams had held the script for 15 years before Eastwood decided to use it for his final film. No release date is yet known for the project.

Juror #2 will be the 40th film of Eastwood’s directorial career. He has won two ‘Best Director’ Oscars for Million Dollar Baby in 2005 and Unforgiven in 1992.

Paint Your Wagon mystery photograph

Paint Your Wagon mystery photograph 

Here’s a really strange picture I discovered recently, taken from Paint Your Wagon (1969), the scene depicts Marvin in what appears to be his Union Blues uniform addressing a small group of troops. Marvin of course does wear this uniform briefly in the movie, notably during the coach sequence where he kidnaps half-a dozen (’6 French tarts’) in order to bring them back to No Name City. The scene is tied in to the song There’s a coach coming in. It’s also evident during this sequence that Marvin (alongside the charging coach) is flanked by a small number of confederate soldiers on horseback escorting the coach into town. 

So, this led me to consider if this was un fact originally a scene shot prior to the kidnapping of the girls, perhaps discussing the plan of action and Ben (Marvin) providing orders to ‘his troops’? It’s certainly a curious shot which does not appear in the finished movie as we know it. We can’t of course actually say that it was shot at all, this may have just been a rehearsal, or in fact an opportunity to simply grab a photo intended for future publicity? 

Paint Your Wagon will always be a hard one to fully examine, its history really does deserve some form of deep analysis and a publication detailing the production would prove to be a fascinating read. Clint actually claimed to have seen three different versions of the movie: the director's cut, the producers' cut, and the studio's cut. He said that the version prepared by director Joshua Logan, whom he greatly admired, was easily the best, "but that wasn't the one that was released".

It remains a curious photo, and one that is perhaps destined to always remain a mystery. 

Rare vintage Malpaso Ad from Boxoffice trade magazine

Rare vintage Malpaso Ad from Boxoffice trade magazine

Here’s a very rare trade ad put out by Malpaso, probably around 1974. Boxoffice started in 1920 as The Reel Journal, taking the name Boxoffice in 1931 and still publishes today, with an intended audience of theatre owners and film professionals. In 2019, its name was changed to Boxoffice Pro.

It’s not hard to see why Malpaso felt like giving itself a ‘pat on the back’ boost during this lucrative period. Malpaso was proud to announce no less than 5 titles that were already on release, and which were distributed by three different Studios including United Artists, Warner Bros and Universal Pictures. At the foot of the Advertisement there was also the opportunity to announce Clint’s latest film in production for Universal Pictures called The Eiger Sanction. 

A great slice of Hollywood history from what is arguably Clint’s greatest period.  

Clint Eastwood Photo Opportunity #37

Clint Eastwood Photo Opportunity #37

For this month’s Photo Opportunity, I’ve chosen a very rare shot of Susan Clark, Clint and director Don Siegel. Don is pictured here giving direction to his two leads during the filming of Coogan’s Bluff (1968). It’s the scene where Julie Roth (Clark) turns up at Coogan’s hotel to confront him after she learns that he has seduced Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling) in order to extract information. 

This was of course the first time that Clint had worked with Siegel, they made a total of five movies together following up Coogan’s Bluff with Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971), Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979).  Siegel was a considerable influence on Clint’s own career as a director, his film Unforgiven (1992) is dedicated "for Don and Sergio".

From 1948 to 1953, Siegel was married to actress Viveca Lindfors, with whom he had a son, Kristoffer Tabori. He married Doe Avedon in 1957. They adopted four children, and divorced in 1975. He married Carol Rydall, a former secretary to Clint. They remained together until he died at the age of 78 from cancer in Nipomo, California. He is buried near Highway 1 in the coastal Cayucos-Morro Bay District Cemetery.